


After

by writerforlife



Series: Dualities [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, I'm so sorry, M/M, i have sO MANY FEELINGS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 10:39:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14470860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerforlife/pseuds/writerforlife
Summary: "If Steve still went to confession, he’d begin with this: sometimes, he couldn’t tell dream from reality. That itself wasn’t a sin. Everything that came after was."He can't lose Bucky again.





	After

**Author's Note:**

> THIS CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR INFINITY WAR
> 
> Infinity War wrecked me. I saw it twice, and both times, I was left speechless, so I knew I had to write something. I hope it's in-character. Feel free to scream about the movie with me!

If Steve still went to confession, he’d begin with this: sometimes, he couldn’t tell dream from reality.

That itself wasn’t a sin. Everything that came after was.

 

 

He wondered why, of all the people in the world, he survived. Why he watched time roll by like movies playing one after another as he stood untouched, a spectator.

Tuberculosis took his mother. He took another breath.

Old age took Peggy. He remained impossibly young.

The fall took Bucky. He survived. Steve only watched Bucky’s hand slip once in reality, watched it slip in dreams for every night after. The ice was a mercy.

Then it was taken from him. He discovered that Bucky was worse than dead. Bucky had forgotten. Bucky shot him. Saved him. Left him.

Came back.

Left again. Steve hugged him before he went under, pressed their foreheads together. When he pulled away, Bucky smiled sadly, like he knew a secret Steve didn’t. Steve didn’t ask.

Sleep wasn’t an escape. He spent nights wondering where he’d gone wrong. After all, he had to have done something to be forced to live a nightmare again and again.

 

 

If he still went to confession, he wouldn’t ask for forgiveness. He owned every action he took, right or wrong. He would say that he had murdered. Stolen. Lied.

The biggest sins came with the lies.

 

 

Bucky had never minded lying, and people always wanted to believe he was telling the truth. It worked. When they were children, he told people he’d never steal. Food that Bucky told him not to ask about appeared on their table. He told people he didn’t cry. Steve had influenza, once, and he remembered Bucky sitting by his bed, hands covering his face and shoulders shaking. He told people that he and Steve were brothers.

Brothers didn’t touch each other like they did.

No matter what, he never lied to Steve. He only told him not to ask.

Steve wished he could do the same.

Even in Wakanda, he woke from dreams of the train. Dreams of Bucky falling into the snow with his arms outstretched. Imagined blood in the snow. A black mask covering Bucky’s face. Empty eyes. Gunshots. Drowning. His arm ripped off. Conjured images of everything Hydra had done to Bucky in the seventy years Steve slept.

Bucky always woke, too, and asked what was wrong. Sometimes, he closed his eyes and let Bucky hold him, head against his chest so he could hear his heartbeat.

Sometimes, he only told Bucky to go back to sleep.

 

 

“Do you believe dreams mean anything?” Steve asked T’Challa before he flew out of Wakanda one time. “The bad ones.”

He couldn’t bring himself to say nightmares.

T’Challa studied him, brow creased and mouth downturned.

 

 

Steve tried to confess. He told Bucky, “I see you die over and over in my dreams.”

Bucky gave him the same tragic look as before he went into cryofreeze voluntarily. It said, _Because I’m going to die before you._ It said, _You’re seeing what has been and what will be._ It said, _You don’t stand a fucking chance against fate._

He left Wakanda without saying good-bye. Stayed away for a few weeks.

When he returned, Bucky met him with dark circles under his eyes. Steve matched. That night, they fell into bed together in a near panic.

They’d never been good at staying apart.

 

 

He wanted to win without also losing. Was that too much to ask?

Did that make him greedy? A sinner?

 

 

Bucky said he was semi-stable. That he wasn’t bad for the end of the world. Steve’s throat burned as he hugged him.

He’d seen the world end over and over. Sometimes there was snow. Sometimes there was a gun. A train.

But it always started with Bucky.

 

 

Thanos wanted to be a god. True gods didn’t have to slaughter millions and wear a glove that gave them the power to intimidate. As Bucky said when they were teenagers, God was everywhere. God was in the streets of Brooklyn and flickering lights that saved them from getting lost. He was in the rain and tears, in the ferris wheel at Coney Island and their apartment. Once, when he was feeling sappy, Bucky pressed his hand to Steve’s chest and said God was in there, in his heart with a murmur and traitorous lungs. Steve laughed, and Bucky kissed him until it turned to something more.

He pressed his hands to the gauntlet and pushed Thanos away from Wanda and Vision.

Steve hadn’t believed in gods in a long time.

 

 

When it was an inconvenience, Bucky complained with bravado. When he was truly hurt, Bucky spoke softly.

He whispered, “Steve?”

 

 

Maybe, if he still went to confession, he would say that when Bucky said his name like that, like everything inside of him was burning and he couldn’t put out the fire, he would do the same as Thanos if Bucky wouldn’t feel so much pain.

 

 

He was there, and then he was ash. Dust.

Gone.

 

 

Sam. T’Challa. Others. How many others? It dawned upon Steve like sun breaking through the clouds after a storm. _How many more?_

Thanos won.

Thanos took Bucky from him. He was gone. Again.

He looks at the spot where Bucky stood. Where he dissolved. The gun. The ashes.

His nightmares were never this real.

Could this be a nightmare?

 

 

He remembered a summer night in Brooklyn when he wasn’t sick. When Bucky didn’t have to work. When they had enough for dinner. As Bucky cooked, he sang off-key as _You Made Me Love You_ played on the radio, a crooked smile on his face because he knew he couldn’t carry a tune if his life depended on it. Steve managed to capture Bucky’s face in his sketch before Bucky pulled him to his feet and placed a hand on his waist. They rocked back and forth in a slow dance, barefoot on the wooden floor. Bucky leaned down to kiss him, and Steve closed his eyes. He ran his hands down Bucky’s chest, feeling for his heartbeat.

Bucky whispered for him to wait. Ran to the kitchen. Took the pan off the heat.

Returned and led them to the couch. He laughed into Steve’s lips as they fell in a tangle of limbs and torn-off shirts.

“I think,” Bucky whispered, “I may be in love with you.”

“I have a secret,” Steve replied. “I’m in love with you, too.”

 

 

He didn’t go to confession after that night. No need.

 

 

Bucky. Sam. T’Challa. More. The screams echoed from the battlefield.

He’d had nightmares like this after rescuing Bucky. After he fell. After he returned as the Winter Soldier. After he shot Steve.

He tasted blood in his mouth and felt gritty ashes in his hands.

This was real.

Real.

What had he done to deserve this reality?

Captain America would have acted. Gathered who remained and put together a force to figure out what had happened. Where Thanos had gone. What he would do next.

Bucky was gone. Again.

Steve Rogers sat and whispered, “Oh, God.”


End file.
